Himachal’s first ever video game tournament puts up a great show, young gamers awarded

Himachal’s first video gaming tournament, ‘Game-Out’, received a warm welcome from young and talented gamers. Himachal Watcher had the honor of being official media partners of ‘Game-Out.’ After an entertaining two days of competition among over a hundred contestants from various schools and institutes of Shimla, the best gamers were awarded for the hard-work they have been doing in front of their personal computers and PlayStation consoles. They proved it that video-gaming isn’t just hitting the controller with all five. One needs to have the skills and reflexes required to play complex games like FIFA 2013, and it was for the first time that such skilled gamers were awarded in the small Himalayan city, Shimla.

Contestants competed in two categories namely, FIFA 2013 and DIRT 3. ‘Game-Out’ received a good number of registrations for the event, which turned out to be a great gathering of young participants, especially school kids from almost every school of Shimla. Sadly, there was only one student from a government school amongst hundreds of other participants. That speaks a lot about the level awareness and the fate of majority of students studying at Himachal’s government schools.

The event was organized by Shimla based organization ‘DamnGeeky’ – a venture of Flexinet Solutions in association with Arena Animation. , Himanshu Sood, being an avid gamer and owner of Wake-n-Bake which is one of the finest restaurants at Shimla Mall showed his presence in the event as the Judge. He has represented India at International level as a gaming champ. Mrs. Nandini Mital, the news editor at Shimla Doordarshan, was also present as the game fest as chief guest of the event. Surprisingly, Nandini herself is a diehard fan of video games and she even had a round of DRT 3 with Himanshu at the event.

Defeating Aksaht Walia of Stokes Memorial School, Sameer Sood came out as the winner of FiFA 2013. Sameer is a student at Arean Animation at Sanjuali. Karan Mashta of UIIT HPU stood third. Sanyam Chauhan of Stokes Memorial School grabbed the winner’s trophy in Dirt 3 after defeating Nitin Bhardwaj. Jatin Kumar, a student at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Jatog claimed the third position.

However, the prize for the ‘best player’ of the event went to Chetanya Bhardwaj, a student of D.A.V. Lakkar Bazaar. He impressed the judges and viewers with a wonderful display of his gaming skills.

Amazingly, the beautiful trophies were not some expensive mementos bought from a fancy store, but were handmade and prepared from old automotive parts, which is an awesome demonstration of recycling junk material into something creative.

Three geeks from DamnGeeky and organizers of the event, Guarav Sood, Bharat Bushan, and Yash Sharma, are skilled bloggers. They are on the web for the last 10 years. These guys have similar plans for future. They’ll be organizing another gaming tournament soon. And have planned a special gaming tournament for girl gamers of the state too. While talking to the three organizers, they told us that motive behind organizing this first-of-its-kind game fest is to promote a platform to gamers of the region and promote their Do It Yourself (DIY) project. The aim is to highlight Himachal’s school talent on an International platform, to promote reuse and recycling, and to provide an apt platform and an international exposure to the science projects prepared by school students, which are otherwise dumped in dark storerooms. That adds to a motivation beyond gaining good grades in exams and encouraging students to take interest in the practical aspect of education.

About DamnGeeky

DamnGeeky is your one stop portal for all the latest gadgets, automobiles that turn eyeballs, DIY, robotics and innovative technologies that will shape the future. The web portal has huge reader-base in US, UK, India and other locations spread across the world making it amongst the best technology magazines in the region.

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Author

Madan has studied English Literature and Journalism from HP University and lives in Shimla. He is an amateur photographer and has been writing on topics ranging from environmental, socio-economic, development programs, education, eco-tourism, eco-friendly lifestyle and to green technologies for over 7 years now. He has an inclination for all things green, wonderful and loves to live in solitude. When not writing, he can be seen wandering, trying to capture world around him in his DSLR lens.